Game Change

I have a mind of my own, at least I want to think so, but, I was influenced enough to give Game Change a miss. I was told this was a hatchet job - I must admit that the comments came from Republicans mostly - I finally saw Game Change last night, It literally blew my mind. Hatchet job? What are you talking about? I felt for her, the film humanizes her and somehow explains without partisan hysteria, how we got there, that in a way is to explain how we got here in 2017. Julianne Moore is superb, superb! Not a single false note or cheap shot. I also felt for John McCain, the American hero who told us that Sarah Palin was ready to to be President. The torment in John McCain through Ed Harris's eyes is more eloquent that any line of dialogue. As is Nicolle Wallace, played brilliantly by Sarah Paulson. Her torment is also so real you can touch it. A special mention should go to Woody Harrelson, es Steve Schmidt, extraordinary. Writers, directors and everybody involved deserve oodles of praise. They told us a piece of recent American history about a woman who thought her Vice Presidency was "God's plan"

Woody Harrelson is a lock for an Emmy nom, and more than likely Julianne Moore and Ed Harris get one as well. Palin may take issue with the moments in the movie that show her getting her diva on, but it's generally a very humanizing portrayal of her as a mom and wife who may have been in over her head but did her level best to soldier on. It's certainly not a caricature of her or a hatchet job. Moore, to her credit. seems to have gone out of her way to construct a reasonably balanced view of an extremely polarizing figure.

Had to love that line that Ed Harris delivers late in the movie where he tells Palin not to allow herself to be coopted by the Rush Limbaughs who will destroy the party. HBO couldn't have timed the TV premiere any better. Just lucky or prescient?

You know what I expected from this film? A brutally simplistic mockery of the last Republican campaign just before the next one starts happening – it seemed an open goal and it seemed that the film was made too soon to be able to be objective and probably had no intention of being so anyway. Imagine my surprise when I found myself watching a film that, some cheap shots aside, is generally fair and balanced in how it plays back the McCain campaign. The film picks up the plot just as McCain is struggling against Obama and decides to play a wild-card by bringing in a poorly vetted Senator Palin to try and win key voter share back. The gambit starts out working great but, for several reasons, it quickly starts to unravel while the Obama campaign only gets stronger.

It is worth me saying at this point that I am pretty liberal in my politics and that I did nothing but laugh at Palin throughout her campaign, all the way till I shed a few tears over Obama's victory speech as I watched it at 6am in the UK. I continue to look at her working as a "talking point" pundit on Fox and marvel at her ability to provide generic bile and if I am honest, I would not have been totally dismayed if this film had been a two-hour kicking of her. However what we actually get is much better and fairer than this and it is only really at the back end of the film where it shows its colours by having a few unnecessary lines and digs thrown in there to no real benefit. The film shows that he McCain campaign took a necessary risk with their candidate and that the risk didn't pay off. It shows that Palin is not some glassy eyed idiot but rather a person who is overwhelmed at first but then makes the mistake of believing her own hype on the news after one successful debate.

This is done in such a way that it works – it doesn't suggest that it was deliberate or that these people are those portrayed on the news, but rather than both decisions and mistakes were made. If anything one could argue that the film doesn't do enough to show how much the campaign got away from under McCain's team – look at the "he's an Arab" moment here, it is much more gentle than the reality, which saw McCain frantically grasp the microphone from his target voter and quickly correct her – in the film it is much softener than that. This change in the campaign is fairly pinned on Palin and it shows her starting to believe her own press and believe that being herself is the all whereas really her stage-managed self was the thing that worked. I liked that her advisors all had that worried look when she spoke, all knew they were training someone who desperately needed training as opposed to polishing and all could see the risk going south.

She isn't presented as an idiot though. Palin is a real person here and you feel for her as she feels out of her depth and also as she convinces herself that she is more than she really is. It also allows you to understand why she goes this path and it is certainly not a mockery of her because it is fair and it is intelligently done. There are several moments and lines later in the film that don't play as fair though and these are rather unnecessary and blunt, but mostly it is well done. The cast do pretty well considering. Moore is not just another Tina Fey but, thanks to the script, really gets her character and makes something of it. Harris starts well as McCain but his character is rather lost in events and I thought he deserved more – and, in fairness, I thought the real McCain was better. Harrelson delivers a strong performance throughout and it is in his character that the impact of Palin is played out – he gives it straight as a political player and it works well. The support cast is full of faces from MacNicol to Livingston to Altman and generally they all do a good job.

Overall then, this is an engaging and intelligent film that more or less manages to be fair and balanced in regards the presentation of the McCain campaign. It shows the decisions and risks within the campaign and the development of brand Palin in a way that is clear and even-handed and it makes for a good film as a result. Not perfect but certainly much better than what I expected.

Without a doubt, Moore will get an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Sarah Palin.......a portrayal that, for the first time, gave me an understanding of Palin and a real sympathy for her. It showed a confident, charismatic, but essentially superficial person used to swimming in the shallows. It was also a Sarah Palin who was a mother with a new baby, a son going off to Iraq, and a close-knit, loving family who was suddenly taken away from that family and was thrust into the meat-grinder of national politics. Instead of being able to transcend herself and grow from the experience, we see a Palin who instead wraps herself up even more into being just who she is and finds a demographic of fellow shallows swimmers who love her just the way she is. Unfortunate, but after seeing this movie you could understand how it happened.

Harris as McCain portrays a rather idealized statesman, one trying to take the high road. There's no mention of McCain's volatile and explosive temper. Instead we're presented with an understanding, but aloof man at odds with the direction his party is going in. Again a sympathetic portrayal.

The final portrayals are of the political operatives in the McCain campaign. As you can understand the way Palin's personality begins to fracture under the pressure, you can also understand the operatives incredible frustration in trying to deal with it. You can understand when one operative, Wallace, finally just refuses to work with Palin anymore. You can understand the frustration of people who have spent their lives being informed try to deal with a Palin who lacks the most basic knowledge of history, world affairs or even how the federal government works. The tutoring sessions remind you of high school brains who've been pressured by the principal into tutoring the well-meaning, but thick-as-a-plank star quarterback so he can play in the finals. The room is thick with frustration on both sides.

This is a movie with no villains in the cast. If there is a villain here, it's a condemnation of the political process whereby a running mate is chosen solely for the electoral votes that person can bring with no consideration if the running mate is actually capable of running the country.

EDIT on 18 July 2012:

I finally read the book "Game Change" over the weekend. This movie actually is based on a very, very small amount of the book; it's not even the whole of "Part 3" as stated/implied in several reviews. The book is 23 chapters long (Part 1 - 14 chapters, Part 2 - 3 chapters, Part 3 - 6 chapters). The McCain campaign starts being covered at the beginning of Part 2 and is covered for the rest of the book. This movie is taken from less than two chapters (out of six chapters) in Part 3: Chapter 20 "Sarahcuda" which is all about Palin and how she got selected and Chapter 22 "Seconds in Command" which as the title implies covers both VP nominees (Biden as well as Palin). Plus the movie uses four and a half paragraphs from Chapter 23 "The Finish Line": two paragraphs describing McCain's relationship with Palin and 2.5 paragraphs about McCain and the "crazies" (that's what the book calls them) who started showing up at his rallies. The book does not cover the actual day of the election, so none of the scenes from election day are from the book, neither are any of the private scenes between Palin and her family. It was surprising to me to see how little of the book that this movie was based on. But many of the Palin incidents in the book are depicted reasonably to very faithfully in this movie. Now having read the book, I feel that the movie brought a greater depth of sympathy and understanding to Palin than the book did. And John McCain definitely comes off a lot better and more sympathetic in the movie than the book as the book does not minimize his foul mouth, his temper, his obstinacy and the dysfunctional relationship with his wife. If you're thinking about reading the book believing you'll find out more about Palin than what's presented in the movie, you won't. But you will find out a lot more about the election. (FYI: The rating for this review was 26 out 30 prior to this edit. Can't say if those people would have kept the same opinion of the review with this addition.)

Excellent movie! Reminds me that Sarah Palin was not anywhere near ready to be picked for Vice President. Movie does make you feel sorry for Palin. But, than again thinking more about what has happened since the 2008 election and NOT feeling sorry for her. If she were anything like the "victim" then she would NOT keep trying to be in the national public eye. I sure hope she finally realizes she will NEVER be a national political figure. Anything else is just a scary thought. Julianne Moore did an excellent job playing Sarah Palin and she got it right in saying this movie shows what's wrong with our democracy. When someone like John McCain can pick a Vice President candidate purely for political purposes KNOWing she was NOT fit to be President (which IS the primary job of a Vice President), then you know this is a problem for our country.